Growth of the Flickr Social Network

Growth of the Flickr Social NetworkAlan Mislove Hema Swetha Koppula Krishna P. GummadiMPI-SWS IIT Kharagpur MPI-SWSCampus E1 4 Kharagpur, India Campus E1 4Saarbrücken, Germany Saarbrücken, GermanyPeter Druschel Bobby BhattacharjeeMPI-SWS Computer Science DepartmentCampus E1 4 Universityof MarylandSaarbrücken, Germany College Park, MDABSTRACT KeywordsOnline social networking sites like MySpace, Orkut, and Social networks, measurement, growthFlickr are among the most popular sites on the Web andcontinue to experience dramatic growth in their user pop-1. INTRODUCTIONulation. The popularity of these sites offers a unique op-Online social networking sites such as MySpace [15],portunity to study the dynamics of social networks at scale.Orkut [17], and Flickr [5] are now among the most visitedHavingaproperunderstandingofhowonlinesocialnetworkssites on the Web. Users of these sites form social networks,grow can provide insights into the network structure, allowwhicharepowerfulmeansofsharing,organizing, andfindingpredictions of future growth, and enable simulation of sys-content and contacts. The popularity of these sites providestems on networks of arbitrary size. However, to date, mosta unique opportunity to study the characteristics and dy-empirical studies have focused on static network snapshotsnamics of social networks at large scale.rather than growth dynamics.To date, most measurement and analysis of online socialInthispaper ...